No Wifi? No Problem. Gmail Releases New Offline E-mail Tools

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No Wifi? No Problem. Gmail Releases New Offline E-mail Tools

Google has gone a long way toward solving the biggest drawback of web-based e-mail — what do you do when there is no internet connection? Google aims to solve that problem with new offering that will enable Gmail users access from their browsers even when they aren't online.

Of course, using an e-mail client with an IMAP connection, many people have long enjoyed offline access to their Gmail accounts. But for those of you that want offline access, and the web-based interface, the new Offline mode is what you've been dreaming about.

Like the very similar feature available in Google Reader, Gmail's offline feature relies on Gears, Google's offline web application API. If you haven't installed Gears in your browser, don't worry, Offline Gmail will prompt you to install Gears the first time you try to sync your messages.

Because Offline Gmail is still in the experimental stage (Google warns that there might be "kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet"), you'll need to enable it through Gmail Labs. To get Offline mode set up, click Settings and then click the Labs tab. Now select the Enable button next to the Offline Gmail feature and then hit the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

You should then see a new "Offline" link in the upper right-hand corner of the Gmail window, next to your username. Just click that link and Gmail will start the offline synchronization process. Be patient, the initial sync can take a little while.

Once Offline mode is done with the initial sync, moving between offline and online modes happens automatically in the background. Say you're stuck on a long plane flight and want to catch up on your inbox overload. Just fire up Gmail and compose as many e-mails as you like; when you hit "send" Offline Gmail will store those messages in its outbox and then automatically fire them off the next time an internet connection is available.

There's also a very cool hybrid mode that Gmail calls "flaky connection mode." Flaky connection mode uses the best of both worlds to deal with situations like a weak WiFi signal or (god forbid) a dial up connection. In this hybrid mode Gmail uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background.

The result is a considerably faster Gmail experience since you only hit the Gmail servers when absolutely necessary — everything else happens by pulling from the locally stored Gears cache.

Now we know what you're thinking, surely Gmail isn't really going to download and keep local stores of all my mail? That could be as much as 7 GB of data for those of you who save every scrap of mail you get.

And the answer is no, Gmail doesn't download everything. In fact it only grabs about 10,000 messages. And Gmail has its own, somewhat mysterious, method of determining which messages it stores.

Todd Jackson, Gmail's product manager, tells CNET that Gmail tries "not to download uninteresting conversations." How does it make that determination? Part of the determination of what to download relies on the date of the conversation. As you would expect Offline Gail ignores the Trash and Spam labels, but Gmail will also ignore any labels that contain mostly unread conversations (more than 99 percent unread).

According to a post in the Gmail Labs Google Group, Gmail will also "download any conversation marked with a label that contains less than 200 conversations, has at least one conversation that has been received in the last 30 days and also has at least one conversation that's outside the estimated time period."

That should cover both the Starred and Drafts labels, but if you're worried about having everything available in Offline mode it might be a good time to do some e-mail housecleaning.

There are two main drawbacks to offline Gmail in this early incarnation. The first and most annoying is that you can't add attachments to new messages composed while offline. You can, however, view attachments that are part of any synced messages.

The other potential problem is that there's no way to access the Contacts section of Gmail.

Still, for most of us, Gmail's Offline mode offers a way to enjoy most the offline benefits of a desktop app while still taking advantage of the web-based interface with its labels, threaded conversations and other tools.